Twitter Wins Patent for Twittering

Originally filed in 2008, the patent describes a “device independent message distribution platform,” and it was officially granted Tuesday by The U.S. Patents and Trademark Office.

What exactly is a device independent message distribution platform? Like most patents, the wording is quite broad, but it appears to describe any service that runs across multiple devices and allows users to “follow” each other, as opposed to subscribing to a broadcasting system such as a mailing list. You can read the full patent filing on the patent office website.

Twitter is tight-lipped about the patent. “Like many companies, we apply for patents on a bunch of our inventions,” reads the company’s canned statement. “We also think a lot about how those patents may be used in the future, which is why we introduced the Innovator’s Patent Agreement to keep control of those patents in the hands of engineers and designers.”

Last year, Adam Messinger, who is now CTO of Twitter, introduced the Innovator’s Patent Agreement, or IPA. Companies, including Twitter, that adopt the novel approach to intellectual property management promise not to use patents from employee inventions in “offensive litigation” without approval from the employees involved. “It will apply to all patents issued to our engineers, both past and present,” the agreement reads.

The IPA should apply to this new patent, even though it was applied for in 2008, but the patent was filed by co-founders Jack Dorsey and Christopher Isaac “Biz” Stone (Evan Williams, the third co-founder of the company, is not listed). That means so long as Dorsey and Stone go along with it, the company can sue other outfits for infringement.